Topic: How do wallets work? -- help the newbie with a multiple backups of diff. wallets - page 2. (Read 2875 times)

Thanks for answering, they are backups of different wallet files. There were about 3-4 different wallets which were used to send/receive a few times each.  And I made backups of each sporadically so now I have about 10-12 different backups total.  I just want to make sure I don't screw up.

I am reading DamienBlack's post.  If I understand correctly I have nothing to worry about.

If I do try and spend more than the actual amount in a wallet (backup) will it spend what it can, or will it only spend if I waited for the wallet amount to update, and spend the exact amount that it says?

And what if it actually has more than my backup shows (while it is updating), and I spend less... and then later more will show up or something?

[I know this is a bit convoluted, but it is really what I did, and I am getting a bit nervous that I will screw up somehow, I remember reading that someone lost 9000 BTC because he didn't have the most recent backup after he spent 1 BTC and his total became ZERO because he was missing the key to the address that was supposed to show that 1 BTC.   Apparently it was the problem that the system sent his total wallet amount, and the receiver got the 1 BTC and the remainder had nowhere to come back to]

Wallets just keep track of the addresses you own. The wallet figures out how much it contains by scanning the block chain that the client gets from the p2p system to see which bitcoins are allocated to those addresses. Since scanning the block chain takes a while, each wallet "remembers" the amount of bitcoins that should be in them. But that "memory" has no effect on how much you really have. What you really have is stored on everyone's computer in the form of the block chain. The wallet just contains the keys to unlock them.

To organize yourself, feel free to consolidate all of your funds to one wallet. DO NOT DELETE THE OLD WALLETS, there is no reason to, and if you ever do something wrong it might come in handy. If you load up a backup of an old wallet, it might think you have more then you really do for a little while, but once it finishes updating itself to the current status of the block chain it will realize that those coins have been removed. Any attempt to spend coins that have already been moved will simply be rejected by the system.

A good analogy is to imagine a giant underground vault with trillions of metal safes. You claim one of these safes as your own. In the safe there is a little coin slot, like a piggy back. You give the address of the safe to people who want to pay you. They pay by slipping coins into the coin slot. Your wallet doesn't actually hold any of the coins, it just holds a key to open the safe. Each wallet contains many keys, for many addresses.

Just load up each wallet and send the money to one address that you are sure you have the wallet for. There is no way to "lose" the bitcoins, even if you accidentally double spend. The only way to lose them is if you don't have the right wallet for the address you are sending them to. The only way to lose access is to lose they key, then those fund will be locked there forever.

Wait, are they all backups of the same wallet? If they all contain the same keys, then there's no reason to keep any but the latest, as it should contain all of your bitcoins. If they're separate wallets, i see no reason to have more than one if you're just going to keep them all in the same zip folder.

Dear Techies,

Please explain, how these wallet.dat files work.

for example:

I bought some bitcoins now 4 different times.  I also have been 'playing' and demonstrating the bitcoin client to family and friends.

So, because I read that it is important to backup your most recent wallet file, and really hide your 'big stash' which for me is about 100 BTC... I now have about 7 different backups, with different times and dates and amounts.

Some contain 0.24 BTC, some contain 100 BTC, and some have 22.34 BTC.

The confusion is that as I was backing them up into an encrypted ZIP file, I named each wallet##.##.zip file where the ##.## shows the total at the time of backup.  I saved these files in 3 different places, and so now I have about 10 files with different amounts and I am not sure which goes with which because some were brand new wallets, some were backups of those I kept adding to, and playing with, and saving at different times.  Is there a way to make sure I don't spend from the wrong one and invalidate another 'backup' of the same wallet, and somehow loose bitcoins.

or

Am I safe to try and spend all the backups into one MAIN (new) wallet.dat file and collect everything into one?  (and those that I double spend will simply not work or something)

Please help!

Thanks